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Friday, May 9, 2014

As I said in my last
post, I am back to playing WoW to some extent, and I've been trying to catch up
with what is going on with Moonkin, WoD, and WoW in general. As a result, I
have a lot of things I want to talk about.

Here is your Fair Warning: I'm going to ignore the fact that I haven't paid
much attention to WoW over the past 18 months and I'm going to act like I know
what I'm talking about. I've read some guides, patch notes, and listened to a
few podcasts, but I haven't looked at any Logs, Simulators, or Spreadsheets and
any assumptions I make will largely be based off of my experiences from before
I stopped playing. So, feel free to call me an idiot in the comments. I only
ask that you tell me why what I said was dumb. On to the post.

The Alpha patch notes is some of the juiciest information, filled with changes that I can't resist commenting on.. The latest update of the patch notes
was 2 weeks old when I saw them. So, I know this is old news for everyone.
Therefore, I'm going to assume you've looked them over as well.

Periodic Effects and Snapshotting

Overall, I think these are positive changes. You may remember that I'm not a
big fan complex rotations, and this should simplify the rotation to some
extent. I never liked the fact that there are times when it is good to
overwrite an existing DoT on a target based upon the Buffs you gain or are
about to drop. In my opinion, DoTs should mostly be "Fire and Forget"
types of spells where you don't have to track 5 different buffs to get the most
out of them.

It's also important to note that this doesn't take all of the strategy out of
how you cast DoTs. With dynamic damage calculation, precasting DoTs before a
buff like Chosen of Elune, basically saves you a GCD of buff time that you can
use for the harder hitting nukes. You also have to think about when you refresh
an Eclipsed DoT. If you're still in Eclipse in the last 30% of the DoT it
doesn't really matter, but if the DoT is eclipsed and you don't have the buff,
you want to wait as long as possible to refresh the DoT.

Despite all of that, I do have two questions.

How will this impact the overall value of Haste as a
stat and a buff? It obviously devalues Haste as a buff since snapshotting
increased the effective uptime of all Haste buffs. However, having DoTs
adjust to Haste buffs dynamically may actually increase the value of Haste
as a stat. This is due to how the stats interact with each other and that
this change incents the player to cast DoTs outside of big haste buffs
meaning there is less interference from the Haste Cap. It's also a bonus
that it eliminates the Haste Breakpoints.

Should this change apply to Eclipse? In the patch notes
it indicates that Moonkin DoTs will still snapshot in terms of Eclipse,
but I don't know if this is a good idea or not.

From the perspective of consistency and simplicity, Moonkin DoTs should
adjust dynamically to Eclipse as well as all of the other buffs. It's not intuitive
that DoTs will function with all Damage buffs but one. Having Eclipse
still snapshot would also continue to encourage some DoT clipping because
you're not always going to be in the last 30% of a DoT while entering and
leaving Eclipse and it's too big of a buff to ignore.

On the other hand, some will argue that this would dumb down Eclipse and
and make it a less interesting mechanic. It would turn Eclipse into
something that just happened and wouldn't have a big impact on how A
moonkin is played. It would also significantly weaken Mastery as a stat.

I'm not sure what the answer is, but I'm leaning towards making Eclipse consistent
with other DPS buffs or increasing the period in which you can refresh the
DoT above 30%.

Talent Changes:

There were several
talent changes while I was gone that I haven't completely gotten my head around
yet, but it looks like Blizzard is pretty satisfied with what we currently
have. With the exception of level 90 tier, most of the talents don't appear to
change, and I have to say one of the real successes of MoP has been the new
talent system.

Hybrid Tier Gutted: I know some people are upset that
the level 90 talents are loosing their DPS component but I don't have a
problem with it. The Hybrid tier was intended to encourage Druids to
perform other rolls temporarily, but it turned into a DPS tier because we
complained about it so much. At the time it seemed strange to me that the
top tier of talents would only be situationally useful. Now that it won't
be the top talent tier, it can go back to encouraging hybrid play as it
was originally designed. I know some people will worry about the DPS loss,
but that's what Beta and Balancing is for. In the end I'm sure Moonkin
will be fine.

Sunfall: My first impression is that it's boring and weak.
Obviously, Blizzard can easily make a spell stronger, but I don't see how
they make this more interesting. All this does is make the solar portion
of the rotation conform to the lunar portion of the rotation. I also
wonder how Sunfall would interact with Celestial Alignment. Would you get
both Sunfall and Starfall like with Moonfire and Sunfire?

Insect Swarm: My first impression of this talent was
very negative due to button bloat. For most classes, Blizzard is trying to
remove abilities, but for moonkin they just keep adding them. There are
already six buttons in a Moonkin rotation and a seventh is completely
unnecessary. Not to mention the fact that Insect Swarm wouldn't speed up
the rotation all that much, and could be weak without the Eclipse buff.
Also, what happens with the remaining IS ticks when you enter a new
Eclipse? Do they still generate energy and if so what kind? Either way
good be bad.

After I thought about it a little more, I do see some advantages for
Insect Swarm. The main one being is that it gives you something to do on
multidot fights when you leave eclipse. Depending on how Insect Swarms
Energy would work you could throw it up on a couple of targets and get to
the next Eclipse on Insect Swarm and Shooting Star procs alone.

I'm still not a big fan of this because I think 7 buttons is to many.
However, it will be interesting to see how they make the energy work. I
would be ok if it turned out to be situationally useful, but I would
rather it not become a regular part of the rotation.

Equinox: My first impression was that this will never
make it to Release. Even though it is somewhat diminished because it would
delay Nature's Grace procs, it still sounds overpowered to me. If I
remember correctly, Eclipse buffed about 60%-65% of Moonkin damage back in
T14 with a 40% buff. If that 40% buff lasted the entire rotation, then
that is 10% or 11% buff. Now, my math is overly simplified, and as I said
before delaying the Nature's Grace Procs would diminish its value some,
but I have a hard time believing that this won't be overpowered.

On a different note, I do like how it would impact the Moonkin play style.
Always being in Eclipse makes it easier to understand what spell you
should cast, and you would never be trapped out of Eclipse in a high DPS
phase.

90 to 100 Leveling
Perks:

As a whole I'm not all that impressed with the Perks. Most of them are standard
fair and boring. Also, a couple of them don't really sound like Perks. Take
Enhanced Starsurge for example. It isn't an enhancement at all. It's just a
design change that Blizzard stuck in the perks for some reason. The perks feel
like they were thrown in last minute, and I'm not sure what purpose they serve.
Why not just bake them into the abilities instead of making people get them
randomly as they level. That said, there are two that I find a little
interesting.

Empowered Mushrooms: This perk has some potential,
because I can see a couple of different ways to use them. The more obvious
option is that you could use them as a part of an AoE rotation, by putting
down the mushrooms, empowering them and detonating them on the AoE's
targets. The other option is to put the mushrooms down on the boss, AoE
the adds, and then get some quick burst with the mushrooms when you switch
back to the boss.

Despite the potential I see a couple of problems. As an AoE rotation it
feels backwards to me. To make it work you place the mushrooms, channel Hurricane,
and then pop the mushrooms. Packs with lots of targets charge the
mushrooms more quickly, but they tend to have less health and my not be
around for the burst at the end. Fewer adds that last longer won't charge
the mushrooms that quickly. If Blizzard is trying to create an AoE
rotation, this mechanic should be reversed. Mushrooms should buff
Hurricane and Astral Storm rather than the other way around. That way you
pop the mushrooms and all targets hit are then vulnerable to storm damage.

Also, I'm just not a big fan of this spell. I don't like having to place
three mushrooms. I don't like the small damage radius. It's just another
button on an already crowded action bar.

Empowered Storms: This sounds more like a punishment
than a perk to me. It depends on how "Storm" damage is
calculated. If it snapshots with Eclipse like the DoTs then players are
incented to clip AoE just before they leave Eclipse. If it doesn't
snapshot then, casting your AoE will push you out of Eclipse and lower
your damage.

Ability Pruning:

In general I think
Ability Pruning is a good idea, but it really hasn't had all that significant
of an impact on Moonkin. To be fair, I can't really think of any moonkin spell
that is useless enough to cut. All of our DPS spells do have a purpose in the
rotation, but I do think Hamlet's idea of cutting Starfall is an interesting
idea. It's currently a fairly boring spell that is cast at a very specific time
in the rotation. If it was cut I wouldn't miss it.

Now lets look at the
spells that really are gone.

Symbiosis: Since I didn't play WoW for most of the
Mists expansion I don't have a lot of experience with Symbiosis, but it
was clear it had issues early on. As I said in the TeamWaffle Moonkin
Roundtable in 2012, Symbiosis was a cool idea on paper that doesn't work
in the game. A lot of the trades were unfair with one player getting
something useful and the other getting something useless. It was also a
pain keeping track of what my 10 options were and who it was good for and
who it wasn't. All in all I think it turned out to be a bigger headache
then it was worth.

Innervate: Not gone completely, but no longer available
to Moonkins. Moonkin haven't needed Innervate for several expansions now.
It was a nice bit of Utility that I could bring to the raid, but it was
always a little difficult to figure out who I should cast it on. I'm fine
that it's gone.

Tranquility: Also not gone completely, but no longer
available to Moonkins. It started out pretty weak for moonkin, but has
been a nice piece of utility for the last couple of expansions. Though it
now sounds like it got a little out of hand in MoP. All in all, it's nice
having a Raid saving cooldown like Tranq, but I probably won't miss it. I
would rather focus on my primary role of DPS.

Glyphs:

The glyph system is
another one of those ideas that sounded cool on paper but doesn't work very
well once it got into game. In Wrath they were powerful, but boring because
everyone chose the same 3. In Cataclysm they tried to make them interesting by
adding a new tier of glyph that shouldn't have a DPS advantage, but again
everyone chose the same set of glyphs. Finally in MoP they completely gutted
the system and focused it on adding Utility and cosmetic affects, and it's
still pretty boring.

If it wasn't for the
Inscription profession, I bet the entire glyph system would be removed from the
game or incorporate it into the talent system. With that in mind, all they are
doing is making quality of life changes to the system. The Auto Learning is a
good idea since getting back to an auction house while leveling can be
difficult and buying the glyphs can be expensive. Combining the two stampeding
roar glyphs is also a good idea.

Professions:

Professions have been in
a bit of a weird place for several expansions. You have some professions like
Alchemy, Jewelcrafting, and Enchanting that are ways in high demand. You have
others like Blacksmithing, Leatherworking, and Tailoring that are mostly
useless other than their leg enchants. Then you have the Gathering professions
that I lot of people like, but some feel like they can't take because they
don't have big enough Performance buffs.

There aren't any big
changes here, but they all sound pretty good.

For one Raiders can be gathers again. As someone server
hopped most of Cataclysm I can say it sucked to have two crafting
professions on my main. Both of my professions needed herbs but the only
way I could farm them was off of the Auction House. If I hadn't invested
so much into both of my professions I would probably change one of them to
herbalism as soon as this went live.

"The yield an herbalist will be able to harvest
from each node is now determined by skill level." Miners and skinners
have similar improvements. My question is what is the upper limit on how
much a skilled gather can get from a single node. If the upper limit is
high enough this could be awesome. Leveling a crafting profession is a
real pain right now because you don't get enough mats while questing, and
the mats on the Auction House are few and expensive. If a maxed out
herbalist can go pick 20 Peacebloom from a single node, it reduce the
impact of those issues.

Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Here's the deal. I've been given an opportunity to come back to WoW and raid again. I'm still thinking about it, but the chances are very high that I'll give it a shot. However, I haven't raided in over 18 months, and haven't paid much attention to what is going on with moonkin or WoW in general since then. Obviously, my skills are rusty and I have a lot of catching up to do. As a result, I've been doing a lot of research, reading patch notes, listening to TeamWaffle podcasts, and looking over Hamlet's Moonkin guide. During this process, I came across an old problem. I don't have anyone to talk to about WoW.

The only reason I started this blog almost 7 years ago was to get my thoughts out of my head and into a form that other people could read or hear. Over time I added the guides and such to attract more readers, but the main reason I kept up with the blog was always to rant at Blizzard about Moonkin design, 10vs25 man raids, or one of a hundred other miscellaneous topics. Now that I'm looking at the WoW and Moonkin news again, I'm having all these thoughts without a good way to express them. So, I guess I'm back to blogging to a limited extent.

I must stress that I'm back to a LIMITED extent.

The guides are likely a thing of my past. There's no way in hell that I'm doing a gear guide again. They are too much work for little or no reward. I doubt I would do a spec guide again, because there other people that make better guides then me anyway.

I also don't know how much I will post. Though I failed miserably a lot, I always tried to post regularly. I'm not going to worry about that this time. I have one post written that will go up soon, but how often I post after that is anyone’s guess. It could be once a month, once a year, or never again. When I have time to write down my thoughts, I'll post them. That's all I can guarantee.

If you’re still with me at this point, thank you. It means a lot to me that people valued my opinion in the past and I hope that my opinion will continue to mean something. Either way I will continue to rant and rave about some random topic as long as I have something to rant and rave about.